


Wild, Yet Most Homely

by iloveyoudie



Category: Endeavour (TV), Inspector Morse (TV), Inspector Morse - Colin Dexter
Genre: Best Friends, Breaking and Entering, Cats, Domestic, Drunken Confessions, First Kiss, Friendship/Love, Gratuitous Napping, Just Add Kittens, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, a surprising amount of shared meals, blackout drunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-10-25 14:17:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20725577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iloveyoudie/pseuds/iloveyoudie
Summary: He should have been thinking that Max didn’t have a cat that he knew of, and thus this could not behiscat, but this one seemed very confident and clearly knew what it was about.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ideally this is set between Endeavour and Inspector Morse. Whenever I think about these two outside of episode specific things, they are in the nebulous middle-aged range of years between shows, which I feel does affect their characters/attitudes just slightly. This is common for many of my fics.  
You are welcome to visualize them however you'd like though :D 
> 
> Thanks to my squad for listening to me complain about this loud and often.

Morse wasn’t sure at what point in his misery that he decided he needed to see Max, but it had become a very predictable stage of his drinking process. After he crossed the threshold from tipsy to beyond, in the absence of good company, he’d get introspective and melancholy - more so than usual - and if he continued to drink, his mind would get away with him and lean towards the ridiculous and oftentimes paranoid. Eventually this would lead to the conclusion that he needed to see Max. Max always lifted his spirits and possessed the perfect balance of patience and severity to snap him out of his ennui (or at least let him wallow in safety and comfort). Sometimes Max would drink with him, after the required tongue lashing, and he would eventually pass out on the sofa or in the other man's second bedroom. The next day they’d have a meal together and Max would take the piss out of him and, eventually, Morse would go home.

It was about as operational a relationship as he’d ever had with anyone, a fact that was a bit dangerous to think about too deeply, so when he left the pub on this particular evening and a short time later found himself teetering outside of the perfectly curated hedges of Debryn’s front garden, Morse simply took it at face value: his legs had brought him here of their own accord.

The cottage was dark and quiet but the second floor windows were open and Morse could see gauzy pinkish curtains drifting in and out of the white window frames with the breeze. He imagined Max all tucked up in his bed, cartoonishly snug in luxurious silk pyjamas probably, and snoozing little bubbles that made the drapes move in time with his breathing.

Morse snorted at himself. He was rather fanciful when pissed.

He pushed himself through the low wrought iron gate, closed it behind him, and leaned on it to get his bearings. His eyes dragged over the lawn and flower beds and then to the gravel drive where he noticed there was no car in sight. It had taken that long for him to realize that if the cottage was dark and the car was gone, then Max was likely not home.

Morse closed his eyes, inhaled, drifted, and then opened them again. He needed to sit down. Everything blurred around the edges, the ground tilted slightly to the right and the paving stones that led to the front door wound wildly through his vision. With his eyes closed the world had started to spin and it was severely disorienting, the drunkenness and the situation, mostly because Morse had been counting on Max being home. The doctor had never turned him away before, and though he hadn’t now either, his unexpected absence struck Morse rather unexpectedly to the heart.

What should he do now?

“Bugger all..” Morse muttered miserably. Something wretched and sensitive burned in his throat and prickled up through his sinuses to sting the backs of his eyes. There was a sudden sense of loss, something gaping and empty inside of him, some emotion he couldn’t recognize in his current inebriation but was ironically heightened by it. Morse took a deep breath and pushed it all down before he took a few tentative steps to find his balance and finally moved further towards the house.

Not to the front stoop.

The stoop was uncomfortable. He knew from experience. He’d taken ill one year sitting there in the rain waiting for Max to come home. It had been one of his more memorable breakups - one of many hospital nurses he’d courted over the years. They’d had a screaming row, something about how difficult he was as a man, how disappointing everything had ended up, and Morse hadn’t known where to go when she tossed him out of her flat. He’d ended up here in his desperation not to be alone. Max knew the girl and was familiar with the situation, but upon arriving to a closed and locked house, he’d broken down and Max had come home to find him bedraggled, soaked to the bone and shivering on his doorstep.

No, not the front stoop.

The garden was always nice in the evenings. He could have a sit down and close his eyes. He could listen to the insects and enjoy the breeze and even if Max wasn’t there, he’d feel content to be in a space that was steeped with him. Even now he could visualize him puttering about the roses with his shears and garden gloves or snapping his hedge clippers at him when he showed up looking for work information and didn't have the patience to wait for it. Max’s home was solid ground. A port in a storm. Once the world stopped spinning, he would be off again, back to his own place where a cold and empty bed would be better than no bed at all.

Morse made his way to the back gate, it was a low white wooden thing - a white picket fence, quaint, he’d always thought - because it turned out you could have one without the wife and kids and dog that were usually advertised alongside. While Morse struggled with the latch, something warm and soft wound between his legs and he jolted in surprise as one did when something alive and moving touched them unexpectedly in the dark. He glanced down to find a rather plump looking tabby with white splotches across its hind quarters and white socked feet. He didn’t remember Max getting a cat, but this one was well fed and didn’t seem skittish. Morse had always preferred dogs. They were trainable and eager to please and unendingly loyal, and for someone like him, that made all the difference. He hadn’t had a pet of any kind since he was a boy and their hound had gone with his father after the divorce. Morse had the sense to know he couldn’t give a pet the proper attention at this stage of his life, not with his job and the odd hours and his endless desire to run off to the Riviera on holiday (yet never did). He didn’t have anything particular against cats though, not when they went after birds and mice, both of which he was exceedingly _not_ fond of.

“Hello, Puss..” Morse stopped messing with the gate. His hands were drunk-numb and uncooperative with the latch so he leaned over and offered a finger to the cat. It sniffed him tentatively before deeming him harmless and rubbing its nose and jowls along his hand.

The cat wound away from him through the slats of the gate and Morse found the sound of soft fur pushing through the wood rather pleasing to the ear. He tried to get in a few more pets but the tail eventually trailed through his fingers and out of his grasp and he nearly tipped over the fence trying to chase the thing with his hand. The wooden barrier was a reminder of what he’d come here for, so Morse finally rallied his hand-eye coordination to complete the task of letting himself in. The cat padded along the garden path and leapt onto the patio table in a pool of golden outdoor lamplight and he could tell now that it was a mottled brown and white with big yellow eyes and was just as fat as he’d originally thought.

Morse sighed deeply when he finally sank into one of the chairs. He tried to close his eyes once more but everything spun again, so he opened them and stared up at the sky into what he could see of the stars through the cloud cover. It was was too much. Everything kept moving around him and the infinite yawning stretch of black-blue above was too empty and too full all at the same time. It was overwhelming and Morse once more felt some rise of emotion from his gut that made him drop his head back down out of fear that whatever it was he was struggling with would come bursting out of him fully formed. He was met with those giant yellow eyes again and the cat stepped off of the table to press its front paws to his chest.

“Oi,” The cat was precariously balanced between the edge of the table and his body, “You’ll fall that way.”

He attempted to scoop the thing into his arms by it’s middle but the cat didn’t let his fingers touch it’s sides for more than a second before it was using him as a springboard and leaping down onto the ground. It walked to Max's back door, looked at Morse, and rubbed against the door frame.

“You want to go in?” Morse snorted, “Me too.”

Now, he should have been thinking that Max didn’t have a cat that he knew of, and thus this could not be _his_ cat, but this one seemed very confident and clearly knew what it was about, so Morse leaned into the logic that Max had gotten a cat when he wasn’t looking or, at the very least, had been feeding this one in his free time.

The cat blinked at him and rubbed on the door frame again.

Morse mustered all of his strength to haul himself out of the chair. Somehow it didn’t seem like a problem for him to try the door. If it was unlocked Max wouldn’t mind him coming in, would he? Then, when the doctor got home, he could lecture him on proper home security.

But what if he didn’t come home? What if he was off staying with someone else? Or worse, what if he did come home, and he wasn’t alone?

Morse’s fingers were already on the doorknob, already turning it, when he realized that Max could be out with persons unknown. The revelation chilled and tightened the knot in his chest that had appeared when he realized Max was gone, but his body was once again doing what it wanted. As he pondered the unforeseen possibility that the doctor could be _on a date_, the door handle jostled, half-loose and half-locked, and Morse thumped it with his shoulder in agitation. The wood croaked and the metal in his palm turned too far sideways with a shivering crack, and the kitchen door popped open and swung inwards.

The cat purred loudly and slipped inside and Morse found himself following, having already committed the breaking and entering. His familiarity with the home took over, compensating for his foolish decision making by doing the only thing he knew how to do, hunker down and drink. Morse flicked on the lamp by the door and immediately went to the cabinet to pick out a bottle of whiskey. The cat, on the other hand, leapt onto the kitchen table and sat upright with its tail curled around it’s white paws as if it were holding court.

“Do you think he’s on a date?” Morse poured himself a glass and brought the bottle along with him when he finally collapsed into a kitchen chair.

The cat just stared at him and when the bottle was set down, leaned to sniff it.

“I never thought of him going about with someone,” Morse realized aloud, “Never has before that I know of," he took a sip, looked at the cat, and opened the bottle again. He poured some whiskey into the cap and set it on the table for the cat.

It was ignored.

“I suppose I always wondered-” Morse murmured, his head sinking down into his arms with misery. All further communique was slurred into his sleeve, “Some doctor probably. Or an academic. Certainly more to offer than a lonely dolt of a policeman.”

The cat leaned forward, sniffed him, and head butted Morse in the forehead. The detective let out a deep sigh, “Pathetic, aren’t I?”

He propped his chin on one hand and used the other one to scratch the cat’s cheek and chin until it was back on to a full motorboat engine purr.

“Sitting here like a sorry sod thinking that Max could have- that he might-” He mashed his forehead into his hand again and rubbed his face and eyes and hair messily. He felt that burn of emotion again, that knot in his chest had gone from icy dread to burning shame. It felt like he’d swallowed a hot coal and it had lodged somewhere under his breastbone.

“Took him for granted for too long, didn’t I? I’m a bloody coward and now he’s gone off and got someone else and I’ll just be-”

The cat sat back again, this time folding it’s legs under itself completely and just watching him.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Morse snapped with mild irritation. The cat looked unphased. It popped one white foot out, shifted onto its side, and began to groom itself.

There was a long silence where Morse watched the cat in the dim lamplight, listened to the sandpaper sound as it licked over it’s fur and sipped slowly from his glass, and then very suddenly the overhead kitchen light burst on. Morse jumped and blinked and cursed and buried his face into his arms in his surprise. The cat, for what it was worth, darted in a flash of brown and white and disappeared somewhere into the dining room.

“Morse,” Max stood in the doorway looking red-faced, annoyed, and like he’d been awakened from a very sound sleep. His hair stuck off to one side in mussed waves and he was clutching the front of his dressing gown closed like an affronted dowager, “Did you break into my bloody house!?”

Morse’s stomach whirled uneasily and he couldn’t be sure if it was the guilt, the surprise, the relief that Max was there in the flesh, or if he was genuinely going to be sick. It was such a thorough discomfort that he didn’t even have the decency to say anything. He didn't even lift his head for fear of the burn of embarrassment in his cheeks. With his face pressed into the cradle of his arms, all Morse could do was take a sudden inhale of air and groan.

He felt a hand on his head, smoothing over his hair, then touching what he could of his forehead, “Morse, lift your head.”

He did slowly, squinting against the overhead lighting. It stung his eyes and he felt like his temperature had spiked a few million degrees since Max's appearance.

“You’re drunk as a bloody skunk.”

“Probably,” Morse’s mood ricocheted between misery, relief, and humiliation. He gestured vaguely to the back door, “Sorry. You weren’t home. The cat wanted to come in- I-”

“Thought you'd let yourself in?”

“You really need a better-” Something wretched bubbled between his gut and his throat and he swallowed it down uncomfortably, “-lock on that door.”

"A new one now, by the look of what you’ve done to it. Flawless plan, detective. Except that I was home -_ I am home_. My car's just out for a tune up," Max took the cap of whiskey, dumped it into the glass, and drank the remainder himself. He closed the bottle, put it aside, and brought Morse a glass of water and a small corn muffin from a covered dish on the kitchen counter.

“Eat this and drink some water,” Max sat down beside him at the table and Morse, very miserably, took a sip and broke off a small nibble of muffin.

By now, the cat was slinking out from the dining room. It’s fur had puffed out in surprise and was slowly returning to its normal shape. The appearance of food was enough to tempt it out of hiding and it crept close enough to sniff Max’s ankles and then, with a leap, was back on the kitchen table again.

“Oh, thank god,” Morse sighed.

Max looked at him curiously.

“For a moment I thought I’d hallucinated the cat,” He ate another bite of muffin, “I didn’t think you had a cat. I’m glad I’m not off my nut is all...”

“Well, _that_ remains to be seen,” Max sighed and swept a hand through his own sleep-rough hair. He took a deep breath, “But yes, that is a cat, and no, it’s not mine.”

Morse paused, glanced at the back door (still ajar - he’d definitely broken the lock), the cat, then at Max who had gotten his sniffs of approval and was now scratching under the thing’s chin.

He shrugged, “Well, it is now.”

* * *

When Morse awoke the first time it was still dark through the curtains and he could see the stars had more points than was usual and were blurring and wavering like a rippled reflection in a pond. He had a sneaking suspicion that he was still drunk. There was a warm weight at his back and something snug holding him around the waist and something else warm and soft tucked up against his thighs and stomach. It was all very comfortable and secure and he didn’t care to think too much about it, only to sleep more, and so he did.

When he woke up again he was flat on his stomach. He was alone and there was sun beaming into his eyes and something heavy and vibrating laying in the center of his back. When Morse moved too suddenly he felt needle pricks of pain stab into his shoulders and he jerked and cursed as he was met with an agitated furry lump leaping into the bedding beside him and coming close to his face to stare at him with accusation.

“You again?” Morse’s voice cracked and he coughed. Dry mouth was a bitch.

The cat yawned and followed with a headbutt to his nose.

“My kingdom for a painkiller,” Morse’s head throbbed when he tried to lift it away from the cat’s attentions, and in his hungover stupor the fact that the cat was there at all felt very foreign. The sun dappled over the bed in rosy splotches through the pink curtains, and they fluttered in and out of the open windows with the breeze. It was that sudden visual that gave him pause, a hazy memory of those same curtains from the night before. Morse glanced around the bedroom, from the window to the bed, to the side tables, to the more distant furnishings covered in miscellanea and realised very suddenly that this wasn’t the guest room at all.

_Rippling stars and pink curtains and alcohol drowsy and the warm weight against his back… arm around his waist… _Oh God.

This was Max’s room.

He would have leapt out of bed in a panic if leaping were not entirely out of the question. Every time he moved it felt like Verdi’s Anvil Chorus was clanging away at the inside of his skull. Morse found a glass of water and some paracetamol left on the bedside table for him right next to his wallet, keys and watch but it took until he saw his trousers and shirt thrown over a chair at the bedside for him to realize that he was stripped down to his vest and shorts.

Morse’s throat went drier, if that were possible, and he guzzled the water and pills down post-haste as if that could wash the unknown possibilities of the previous evening away. The cat watched him from the center of the bed where it kneaded its paws into the blankets with a quiet purr. Morse’s first instinct was to throw on his clothes and flee but he could smell coffee distantly and his stomach was in anxious alcohol-sour knots, so he rushed off to the toilet instead. It wasn’t a first to wake up at Max's with a hangover but waking up in the man’s bed certainly was. He knew he was welcome to take a shower, and well familiar with where towels and toiletries were, so he put his mind to feeling more like a human and less like a whiskey-soaked rag that had been left for the ants overnight. Any and all brainpower was steered away from whatever possible unknown actions had led to the eventuality of him being stripped to his underclothes and spending the night cuddling his closest mate.

By the time he emerged with damp hair and mostly dressed, the cat was gone and the forge hammers in his cranium had softened considerably. Morse felt like he was doing a walk of shame as he plodded down the stairs with his shoes and shirt in his hand, but he couldn’t remember enough of the night to figure out why. He remembered getting into the house and Max saying he didn’t own a cat but after that it was just… gone. Only that one moment stuck out in his mind, waking up tucked against another warm body with the cat snuggled into the crook of his waist.

Said cat met him at the bottom of the stairs and Morse noticed that there was a thin brown leather collar fixed with a bell around its neck.

_What was going on? _

Upon seeing Morse, the cat ran off towards the kitchen with soft jingling steps, and a moment later he heard Max exclaim in agitation, “Cat! Not on the counters! We've had this conversation!"

There was an audible thump of soft paws and bulk hitting the floor.

Morse set his shoes down in the foyer and pulled on the arms of his shirt while he tried to work up the nerve to finally go into the kitchen. He had to still be drunk or dreaming because something about the whole scene was surreal. When he finally bit the bullet and joined his host, he was positive that the haze he was wandering around in was evident on his face.

"Two o'clock," Max looked at his watch. He was in an apron and shirtsleeves and always looked much more together than Morse did. Even with his sleeves rolled to the elbow, Max was pristine, "Nearly on the dot. You don't even pick up PM results that promptly."

Morse's face twisted, his gut roiling from even a vague insinuation of corpses this early in the morning.

Wait.. two? _In the afternoon?_

"_Christ_," Morse groaned. It wasn’t early at all.

“I called Strange for you,” Max filled a glass of water, walked to the table, and set it down, “You’ve got a mild head cold as far as he knows. So you’d do well to put it on a bit when you speak to him next.”

Yes, Morse was familiar with all of this. Max cooking something in a pan, making him drink his weight in water, and concocting his excuses. He seemed to get great enjoyment out of making Morse seem to be the most irresponsible sod on the planet to his boss, not that he was entirely wrong in that.

“Right. Thanks,” Morse leaned on the back of one of the kitchen chairs and looked around. The cat was sitting very still on the floor staring at Max with a twitching tail. The back door was closed but the knob seemed to now be tilted crooked. There was a a pile of shopping on one of the chairs and a pet bowl on the floor by the back door that he’d never seen before.

“Food or no?” Max was holding a pan full of greasy fried everything.

Morse’s stomach audibly growled.

Max didn’t wait for him to speak, he just divvied a good portion out onto a plate.

Morse was feeling thrown by the normalcy of his doctor friend while everything else was just slightly off kilter. It was like the Twilight Zone. He’d slid right into an adjacent universe and in this one Max had a cat and they shared the same bed. Morse squinted, rubbed his head, and finally gritted out, “What’s going on?”

"You don't remember?" Max looked at him immediately and pinned him with a sharp stare over the top of his glasses. He looked rather disappointed, “You broke into my house to let the cat in-”

“-but you don’t have a cat-” Morse interjected.

Max nodded slowly, “Which I told you.”

So that much worked out right, “And then..?”

Max frowned hard at him, “I told you that you’d broken my door and I fully expected you to pay for the repairs.”

Morse didn’t remember that. Did that actually happen or was Max simply capitalizing? Of course, he _would_ pay. Obviously.

“You agreed,” Max shook his head as he continued, “You were a wretched mess. I wasn’t sure if you were going to cry or vomit all over my placemats.”

Oh, no. That sounded exactly right.

“And then I ravaged you on the kitchen table and took you to bed.”

Morse was fairly sure something inside of his mind popped, a blood vessel exploded or some section of his brain had just shut down. He almost whited out, like he’d heard jet pilots did when they went too fast or too high into the atmosphere. He was sure he looked like a bloody goldfish with his mouth hanging open.

Max barked in sour disbelief, “Pick your jaw off the floor, Morse. No need to look so shocked. You practically threw yourself at me. I was very gentle.”

Max put the rest of the food on a plate for himself, sat down, and began to eat.

Morse’s brain sputtered as he watched the man calmly munch on some fried potatoes as if he had just said the sky was blue and the tides went in and out and the wind blew.

And then suddenly, “You’re having me on.”

“Of course I’m having you on, you sot,” Max let out a singular ‘ha’ of satisfaction and gave him a smirk, “You passed out at the table and when I told you go to up and lay down, you took yourself into _my_ bedroom and proceeded to try and wriggle out of your clothing without using your hands.”

Morse flushed red and finally began to eat. As soon as the first greasy piece of meat hit his tongue he realized just how starved he was.

"I would never ravage you unless I was sure you’d remember it," Max teased, "And you would."

Morse almost choked on a tomato but the memory of an arm around his waist and warm weight against his back crept back up and fluttered through him nervously. They were long time friends and Max had seen him in all of his worst states of duress and undress. Even now he was taking the piss but Morse couldn’t help feeling conscious about it. Maybe it was because he couldn’t remember most of the night and he was on the losing end of the joke, or maybe it was because the idea of the two of them being anything more to one another was a joke to Max to begin with.

Understandable really, considering.

Max chuckled and speared his own tomato, “You are a cuddler though.”

“Alright!” Morse exasperated, “I get it.”

The cat had made it onto an unoccupied chair and was peering up over the table edge at them eating. It was a good enough distraction from the nagging feeling that Max wasn't telling him everything that he'd done or said last night. Yellow eyes were very keen on each bite they put into their mouths, yet when it snuck out a paw to place on the edge of the table, Max shot it a glare and made a noise and pointed his fork at it. The paw retracted.

"Alright," Morse finally sighed, "I give. What's going on with the cat?"

"Well, I did a quick circuit of the neighbors this morning while you got your beauty sleep. The cat’s well taken care of and doesn't have fleas that I could tell, so I assumed someone’s pet had got out," Max shrugged a shoulder, "No one in the vicinity was missing a pet. Stopped by the church and the local police station. Not so much as a poster was up. So I took her round to the veterinarian."

"Her?"

"She is indeed female," Max wiped his mouth, "And they hadn’t heard of any missing cats either. So, as you poignantly stated last night, we've got a cat now."

"We?!"

Max scoffed, "Well, you brought her here. Besides, I'll need help with the kittens when they come."

Morse felt his fragile constitution crumbling. He was a Victorian lady too shaken to operate. He was catching the vapors. He needed a well placed settee to collapse upon, "Kittens?"

"Mmmhmm," Max was eating again, calm as a summer morning, "You don't really think a stray cat got that round from living off of scraps, did you?"

He hadn't actually thought about it.

"She's pregnant."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In classic ange fashion, this was originally intended to be a quick two parter.   
It will instead be 4. It's all written up... just trying my patience with some periodic release.
> 
> Title adapted from the opening line of The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe.


	2. Chapter 2

“I think your head cold may still be an inconvenience tomorrow,” Max had said when he handed Morse a spare key just as he had been about to leave. What he’d meant at the time was that Morse was to be back there the next day, while most responsible adults were off at their places of work, so that he could ensure that the lock was repaired immediately and not put off to a later date, but Morse was having a hard time thinking past the fact that Max given him a key at all. Once his mind had opened to reality that he may, in fact, fancy Max just a little bit, he couldn’t let it go.

So he slept on it and when he awoke the next day, he was feeling much more himself and much less like he’d walked out of some sort of cotton insulated television episode with a quirky pet-themed plot. Morse fudged a call into the office (effectively grunting his way through being ‘miserable and sick’) and then called the locksmith while he had his tea and toast. Stepping out the door, dressed and ready to face the day, a good cleansing deep breath of fresh air was interrupted by a flash of something large and furry that exploded out of the bushes with a jingle and attacked his ankles.

“Bloody cat!”

She had his trousers in her mouth, claws out and dug into his leg, and froze with her tiny fanged mouth still open and hooked into the fabric as he yelled. She stared at him hard, unmoving and wild, and stayed latched on right where she was.

Morse shook his leg, trying to shake her off, but she gripped harder until he stopped and with a wild tail flick she bit the fabric again before leaping away like nothing had happened and running down the path to his car. Morse, like a fool, half jogged after her and called out like she would answer him, “How did you find my house? Why aren’t you at Max’s?”

She rubbed against the car tire.

“He probably left the window open or something, didn’t he? It’s a damn wonder he hasn’t been burgled by now.”

Oh, wait, he had. By him.

Morse opened the passenger door and gestured for the cat to get inside. She didn’t move. He attempted to pick her up again and she once more leapt away from his fingers, though this time she bounced into the passenger seat and he closed her up inside before she could change her mind.

“No claws in the leather, you hear me?” Morse said as he put the key in the ignition. Thankfully she was intrigued by the vehicle, sniffing the seat and the floor mats, then climbing into the back. He wondered how she had been in Max’s car when he’d driven her about the neighborhood looking for her home. He didn't even start the engine until she was done her exploration, and after a thorough sniff, she settled across his lap. As the engine started, she startled lightly and flattened, but Morse put on some Berlioz, and surprisingly, the cat seemed to relax.

Morse let them into Max’s house and met the locksmith about a half an hour later. He spared no expense in making sure the place was secure. Deadbolts were installed on all the doors and the back door's handle was completely replaced with something more modern. Morse had hovered and observed, 'supervising' he would call it later, until the workman began to politely hint that he make himself scarce. Morse vacated to the sitting room and did his crossword while Cat instead followed the stranger around. By afternoon the job was finished and Morse called Max after the locksmith left to keep him abreast of the situation.

“The cat met me at my house this morning, you know.”

“Did she?” Max only sounded slightly surprised, “Well she is an outside cat, Morse. I don’t think she’s feral, still think she was a pet once, but a bit of a wild thing all the same. Keeping her locked up would probably mean her tearing my house to shreds.”

“Yes, well this wild thing gnashed her terrible teeth and showed her terrible claws straight into my leg when I stepped out my front door.”

“Let the wild rumpus start,” Max chuckled.

Morse had been doing a rather good job of forgetting his foolishness from the day and evening prior. His overly romantic fancies were just that, safe to be packed away in the back of his mind, but Max was too clever for his own good, and he was Morse’s favorite brand of clever, so his quick and snappy lines roused affection in the detective no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. It would be his own downfall in the long run, he was sure, because no matter how hard into denial he sank himself, the feelings bubbled unhindered to the surface. He wondered again if he’d done something revealing or foolish in those late drunken hours that he couldn't remember. Morse trusted Max with his life, but life or death and lapses in his character didn't exactly hold the same gravity. Max relished celebrating when Morse made an idiot of himself. To suspect the doctor of withholding something from him may have been a bit unfair, but if some sort of laugh was to be had at his expense, he'd much rather have gotten it over with. He hadn't asked of course, he was too embarrassed, so the only thing to do was wait for the axe to fall. 

It didn't. Max was, instead, pleasant and inviting.

“Have yourself a beer,” Max said, “I’ll be home in an hour or so. I’ll do us dinner. It’ll give you two a chance to bond. I know reasonable level headed conversation isn't much your thing-"

Morse clucked his tongue aloud and rolled his eyes.

"-but you ought to speak to her about sneaking out and mauling you early in the morning. Especially in her condition.”

He hadn’t gotten a beer. Instead, he put on a record and stretched out on the sofa for a nap. It was a minor experiment to see if the cat really enjoyed the music or if the car ride had been a fluke. The morning's selection had been from _Les Troyens_, so he tried something different, something lighter from Max's collection that wouldn't hinder his own nap. Morse awoke an hour later, laid out on his back exactly as he’d been when he dropped off except for the cat that slept soundly in the center of his chest. She looked very peaceful with her paws tucked under her like a loaf and her eyes closed. The music, Handel this time, had run its course and done the same thing to the cat as it had done to Morse - bored her to sleep.

Morse noticed a shadow looming over him and his eyes darted in alarm before he realized it was Max. The doctor was sporting a gentle expression that he'd never seen before and had a hand out as if he'd been going to touch him. Max himself looked surprised to be caught, but his alarm was fleeting and well covered up. He stopped Morse from sitting up with that outstretched hand and put a finger to his own lips with the other. He pointed to the cat before he gave her a light caress down the back. Her fur rippled under his hand and she began to purr without even opening her eyes. Morse surrendered himself to a massive yawn, and as he did so, swore he felt fingers ghost over his hair but Max was gone by the time he was finished rubbing his eyes. 

When the cat didn't move or wake, Morse dozed for a few more minutes. Max had put the radio on and the pop hits were cut in with the chattering of a mid-afternoon host. Morse had disjointed half-awake dreams about that look on Max’s face when he'd woken up, interspersed with an unusually modern soundtrack, and dappled with morning sunlight and a whispers in his ear and pink bowed lips and eyes darker blue than his own. It set off that gnawing need in him, that yawning empty place he'd felt when he'd looked up at the night sky in the garden. The feeling lingered and sunk into his bones and his belly and made the tail end of his nap very unsatisfying.

As soon as cooking smells began to drift through the first floor the cat finally stretched and yawned and extended her claws straight into his chest. Morse hissed himself awake, given no choice by his furry overlord, but he managed to shoo her off so he could finally sit up. His stomach grumbled with interest, the uncomfortable feeling simply turning into genuine hunger, so he hauled himself into the kitchen bleary eyed and tried in vain to mash down his hair on the way. He was still nap-warm and huddled into his own jumper as he set himself up at the kitchen table to watch Max perform his culinary magic. Morse’s mind drifted again, still sleepy and mildly grumpy from waking from his disconcerting slivers of dream, but he was mesmerized by Max’s figure weaving about the kitchen and it was accentuated by him humming whenever a song he knew began to play. Max knew more of the modern pop than Morse expected, though he discovered to his own dawning horror, that so did he. Morse jolted lightly when a beer was set down in front of him. He'd drifted off again, but Max merely gave him an amused look and continued on. The cat was given raw slivers of chicken as a treat, and the liver when he got to it, and Morse started to wonder if he should start bribing her for love and cooperation with similar gifts.

“We can’t keep calling it Cat,” It was the first thing he said aloud since he'd woken up and it had taken a couple swigs of beer to jump start his brain.

Max transported the chicken he was cooking (in some sort of white wine sauce with capers) into a serving dish and moved on to make a quick vegetable.

“She doesn’t seem to mind,” He peered over his shoulder and the top of his glasses at Morse, “Besides, Edgar Allen Poe had a tortoiseshell named Catterina. I think it suits her.”

Morse snorted and took another drink, “She_ is_ a little horror. Soon to spawn more.”

Cat looked up from her munching and gave him a stare as if she _absolutely_ had understood what he said.

During dinner, after a full plate and a glass of wine, Morse finally apologized, “I’m sorry about the other night. The breaking in and being roaring drunk and invading on your personal space..”

“Oh, tosh,” Max waved his fork. He was on his second serving. It was very good, “I am curious to know what that was all about though. Usually your extreme bouts of alcoholism have a very distinct trigger and happen at home.” _Or here_, went unsaid.

Morse certainly wasn’t ready to explore Max’s knowledge of his triggers, and despite any forthcoming denial, he knew exactly what had set him off. It was stupid. A wedding invitation from an old girlfriend. A recently _old_ girlfriend. She thought they were still friends and he found the entire idea of friendship after a relationship like that to be distasteful. It wasn't that he'd wanted to marry her. Morse had a knack for ruining things before they got anywhere near marriage. Over the years he had realized that the concept of marriage was only really appealing _in theory_. The reality of a woman coming into his home and changing everything, changing him, was what set off every internal alarm he had. Not being alone would be nice, with the right company, but marriage? 

With that in mind, a wedding invitation wasn't anything that he should have cared about at all, yet something about it had hit him the wrong way. One pathetic self-pitying drink had led to another and then to another and then that had led him here. Why that was, at this point, went without saying.

It was all very stupid. He was a very stupid man.

“Can’t remember,” He said.

Max gave him a frown.

“People do despair, Max…” He said cheekily.

Max gave him a hard stare, “You don’t say.”

* * *

Morse, despite his initial disputes on cat ownership, quickly grew very attached and as the days went by he became more and more invested in the impending birth. Cat didn't show up for any more surprise morning attacks on his front step, and while he was happy that his trousers were spared, he found himself concocting excuses to show up at Max’s after work instead. If it seemed odd that he appeared just in time for dinner, Max didn't mention it. He said that it was nicer to cook for someone else than to be alone, and so their first impromptu meal turned into a bit of a regular thing. After the first week and weekend, Max seemed to expect that Morse would be there every other evening and it became a regularly scheduled date. Not that it was a _date_, but Max began planning ahead, calling Morse to find out if he had any preferences, seeing if he had wine or beer suggestions, and having him fetch things from the shops before he dropped by.

Morse found he liked having something to look forward to throughout his day and when it was just he and Max, there was none of the social pressure or the exhaustion that often came with meeting coworkers or fair weather friends. Morse enjoyed his alone time as much as the next man but he was finding now, on the nights that he stayed in, that he missed the warm environment of Max’s home. He missed the conversation, bickering and debates, the food and the garden view and even the bloody cat, who genuinely seemed to like him for all it gave him trouble. He even missed sitting in silence together, reading over work reports or a book, while the cat chose one of their laps to sit on and the television or the radio blathered away as white noise in the background. What had remained an undeniable desire to be steeped in Max’s presence when he was sloshed, had become a rather nagging need when he was sober as well.

Soon Cat began to eat nearly twice as much as she had when she'd arrived and both men found their evenings being dominated with the expectation of kittens. Morse had been asking around the office for advice (and prospective adopters) and Max at the hospital, and meal times turned into planning meetings. Max had been instructed on increasing Cat's calorie intake and Morse had gone and nicked a box from the grocer, lined it with some of his older towels, and put it into the corner of the guest bedroom as he had also been told to do. Cat was shown the space but she didn’t care much to linger there if the pair of them were going to be elsewhere so she didn’t initially pay it much mind. The vet had told them she may make a nest on her own, quiet and secluded, and that when the birth was imminent, they would know.

Morse had been in the middle of a monthly report when Max called his office. He hadn’t heard all the _‘don’t get too excited’_ bits or the _‘she’s just making a lot of noise’_ parts of the conversation. He only registered that the kittens may be coming so within the hour Morse was on Max’s doorstep with an overnight bag and his paperwork clutched in a messy wad under his arm. The cat had paced circuits around the house making distressing noises for most of the afternoon, and for all Max seemed cool and collected now, he admitted he’d called his sister in concern that something may have been wrong. She had reassured him that this was all usual and by the time Morse arrived, their expectant mother had already disappeared into the secluded spare room.

“Should we… I don’t know… check on her?” Morse at least wanted to put his bag down, as he was hoping to sleep in that room later. He told himself it would be good for one of them to keep watch in case human intervention was needed, but really he’d been feeling a bit left out of the entire process since the cat lived with Max. He wanted to keep up his end of this co-parenting lark (and very decidedly was not thinking about sharing Max’s bed again in an effort to give proper berth to the... birth).

“Only if she lets us,” Max seemed more jittery than usual, and if asked to point out how, Morse wouldn’t be able to, but he knew. They spent enough time together now that he could just tell. Something in the twitch of his fingers and the way he rocked from heel to toe. He just _knew_. Max hadn’t offered anything to drink or eat like he usually would and they both hadn’t moved past the foot of the stairs since he’d come in. They hovered as if drifting too far from the action would mean missing some very important, “They tell me she should take care of the actual birth herself.”

“But you _are_ a doctor,” Morse said helpfully.

“For humans, Morse,” Max huffed, “And usually dead ones.”

“Oh, come on, you stuffy bastard,” Morse smirked and curled an arm around Max’s shoulder to turn him towards the steps with encouragement, “I’ve seen you take care of your share of living humans.”

“Usually you,” Max blinked as he was enfolded in Morse’s arm.

“That’s besides the point. Come on. It can’t do harm for us to peek in.”

The pair of them embarked up the stairs like they were sneaking up on an intruder who was rifling through the second floor for the family jewels. Each was nearly on tip-toe by the the time they reached the bedroom door. There was a moment of anxious hesitation, an uneasy glance at one another, before they peered inside pressed together like snooping children. The cardboard box that Morse had put together looked like it had been dragged several feet from its starting location and the towels inside were completely gone.

Intrigued, Morse stepped forward, as if this were some crime that needed solving, but found the answer was swift and simple. The tail end of a towel stuck out from the slightly open sliding doors of the closet. Cat, as the vet had said, had dragged all the towels out of the box and made her own nest. She’d even clawed down an old dressing gown of Max’s, and as the doctor peeked in first (because he was clearly a medical professional), he made a point to remove a naked wire clothes hanger from where it had fallen on the floor - for safety’s sake. Their new mother was licking a tiny, slightly slimy, ginger lump of a kitten and paused to grumble low at him when he got too close.

“Sorry, dear!’ Max mumbled hurriedly, and backed out of her view. He pushed his glasses up his nose and gave Morse a nod, “Well, it’s - ah - certainly happening.”

"What?" Morse was unnecessarily nervous and Max’s ever-unreadable expressions weren’t reassuring him of anything, "Let me see."

“I don’t think she-” Max didnt stop him, just warned, and as Morse also popped his head in and received a glare from the cat, he understood why.

"Oh," Morse looked mildly disgusted, his nose wrinkling up when he rejoined Max in front of the closet door, "Are they always slimy like that?"

That seemed to break something in Max, the quiet tension snapped, and he broke out in a small laugh. His arm curled through Morse’s and he pressed his forehead to the other man’s shoulder as he braced against his own ridiculous chuckling, "Yes. Morse. Every baby is slimy like that. You don't need me to explain do you? About placenta and the like? Even you were a slimy worm of a child once upon a time."

"Hey!" Morse cracked a cheeky grin. The laughter was infectious and he knew he sounded ridiculous so he embraced it, "I resemble that remark."

They both laughed again, and their nerves and relief in equal measure seemed to pour out of them with the ridiculous. Their new mother seemed alright on her own if they let her be. Max pushed the closet door back to a sliver to give her privacy.

"This calls for a drink."

* * *

"I have a confession," Max said as he drifted to the kitchen pantry. He began pulling things out, "I bake."

Morse snorted over his small glass of brandy. It was a tiny celebration, even though the kittens weren’t all born yet, and Morse had produced a pair of cigars that remained unlit and sitting on the kitchen table. Max had seemed amused by his enthusiasm but told him any and all smoking would be done outside in the garden and only after every last kitten was born, "It's only a bit of brandy, Max. Not enough for me to black out that you are a baker."

"As a coping mechanism, I mean. To relieve anxious energy. Some people eat or smoke or... drink.”

Morse pursed his lips.

"I bake,” Max pulled his apron over his head.

"There’s nothing to be anxious about."

"Yes, well," Max was tying his apron strings hurriedly, "How do brownies sound?"

Max had never spoken to him before about his stresses or anxieties. It may have seemed like a very normal thing between very normal people, but they weren’t normal people were they? Max was the unflappable one and he was the mess. Funny how a single cat and her babies could tilt things emotionally, just a sliver, just enough to turn something usually unsaid into something that couldn't possibly be held in. There were slimy worms upstairs who knew nothing about this cruel world. They would need constant care and vet visits and their mum needed looking after as well. Those damp little lumps upstairs would turn into fuzzy little balls of trouble and then actual cats - and they hadn’t even gotten to the bit where they had to find them suitable homes...

In light of all the details, the doctor certainly had a point about anxiety. Morse drank down the rest of his brandy in one go, "Good. Right. Do you need any help?"

"Can you whisk?" Max barely needed to look at Morse's slightly puzzled expression and the long pause of silence told him all he needed. He shook his head, "No. Thank you for the offer. I think I can handle it on my own. Why don't you sit there and do what you do best."

"Drinking and crosswords?"

"I meant look pretty," Max smirked cheekily, "But those others will do well enough."

Morse's cheeks slashed briefly with pink.

Morse called out for dinner while Max got to the baking and he found himself gifted with the privilege of music selection. He liked watching Max cook. Morse couldn’t claim to have any expertise in a hobby or any secret skills of note so he found something to be admired in someone who clearly knew what they were doing outside of their profession. Without the presence of a corpse in the room, Morse could more fully appreciate Max’s skill and precision. Kitchen knives were kinder than scalpels, spatulas and whisks much preferable to bone saws, but the same concentration and focus came into play. Max was more relaxed here, more forgivable of a mistake in his kitchen than in the lab, and in between him telling Morse that 'whisking the eggs is the secret to better brownies' and asking 'shall I add a bit of whiskey in?' (the answer was yes), he hummed to the music and it was endlessly endearing.

By the time dinner was delivered, the brownies were baking and filling the house with a heady chocolate aroma. Even though their meal was good, it was more of a necessary evil with the tantalizing smells of dessert lingering. Morse insisted on doing the washing up when they finished and he forced Max out of the kitchen while the brownies sat on a rack and cooled. Max checked in upstairs, and when he returned, beckoned Morse from the bottom step with a finger.

They drank stout and smoked cigars while taking their dessert in the garden to celebrate the final count of four new kittens who had entered their lives. Thankfully Cat didn’t mind them being in the room once all was said an done, so when they finished, they took up in the spare room and played cards on the bed in their stocking feet like children having a sleepover party. They watched the little babes licked clean until they transformed into soft needy potatoes and as the hours waned, the pair of men dozed off beside one another still in their clothes.

It was the first time that Morse had woken up early enough to be able to watch Max sleep. They weren’t even touching, not even close, but he indulged himself. He wasn’t sure such a thing would ever happen again, so he enjoyed it while it lasted. He found that he wanted to touch him, he wanted to be wrapped up in him again like he had been in his drunken idiocy not so long ago. Wanted to wrap his arms around him in turn, tuck him close and hold him to his chest and inhale his scent. But it wasn’t that easy, was it? They were friends. There were rules for these things weren’t there? They worked together. Max clearly thought he was a drunken lout - he was, admittedly, just that - and that was reason enough to keep his hands to himself. It was also the first time he readily admitted to himself without struggle that he fancied Max quite more than previously thought. It was more than was healthy for a simple friendship. It wasn't simple at all. The spin in his stomach, the blush Max brought to his cheeks at unexpected moments, this slowly developing need to be near him more and more…

Honestly, he didn’t ever want to leave.

So, of course, Morse tore himself away. He made sure he was up and dressed and showered, made sure he checked on the cats and made coffee, all before Max even stirred.


	3. Chapter 3

The first born kitten was ginger, the next a dark striped tabby like mum, and the last two were mostly white with dark spots on their rumps and faces and feet. Morse ended up staying for several days in a row, a mini holiday, and he and Max morphed into overprotective parents overnight. They hovered and fussed more than necessary. They bickered lightly over if the kittens were warm enough, if Cat was being provided for properly, if they should give them nicknames or if that would get them too attached. There were no more bed-sharing antics, but they did spend a lot of time in the spare bedroom watching the kittens feed or making sure their mum got a break.

Morse found that there were moments with Max, laughs, smiles and looks, that turned his guts to fire or his knees to jelly. There were other times, the pair of them saying goodnight or either of them popping out for something, that stuttered awkwardly and felt pregnant with tension. He attributed this to his own one-sided infatuation because Morse was sure, by this point, if something were meant to happen between them it would have. Max had never shied from telling him what was what. If he wanted something he took it and if it needed to be done he did it. If nothing had happened, it was because Max clearly wasn’t interested.

On his first night back home by himself, it ached in a way that Morse couldn’t explain. Perhaps he missed the cat, the adorable little kittens who spent most of their days doing nothing but eating and sleeping, or perhaps it was something else. The reality of this pet co-ownership had dug it’s proverbial claws in rather deep, that was easy to admit, but his other attachments were much more of a struggle. Morse lay in bed on that first night home and tossed and turned in his empty house. His house, ever since it’s purchase, had been his escape from work or nosy mates, but that night it felt empty and hollow for the first time and his only chance at sleep ended up coming in pharmaceutical form. Morse slept in and got to work later than expected, and like a punishment, Strange dropped a three file cold case on his desk in the same breath that he asked after the cat and her newborns.

The stark reality of the real world had finally sunk in. Morse with a case was a Morse who loathed distraction. The fact that the crime was more than a year old meant more leg work than usual and three files meant it had already gone through several somewhat capable detectives before it had reached his desk. Morse’s updates on the kittens came via phone calls, because in an old case like this there was no need to see Max at the hospital. He had no excuse to drift by the Radcliffe with questions or to drop by the house for an inquiry and Max hadn’t even been the examiner on the original case. Their dinners had to be put on pause because Morse wasn’t capable of multi-tasking where work was concerned and instead he lived on only a couple of hours sleep, the meagerest diet, and a steady stream of ale. In the blink of an eye two weeks was gone to inquiries and driving hither and thither across Oxfordshire. In the end, just as Strange was on his last nerve with Morse due to a bit of creative language and some minor emotional manipulation of a witness, he finally closed the case.

His relief lasted barely a few hours. He was woken up that evening with a double homicide, a husband and wife, and not even Max would escape working on that one.

“Their eyes are open finally and they’re crawling around a bit. Trying to walk,” Max told him over the ripe pair of corpses. He snapped his gloves off coolly and chattered away as if they weren’t even there. It was much easier for Morse to detach from his personal longings while standing in the sanitary confines of the morgue. He could hardly get sentimental when the mere presence of a dead body made his skin crawl, and in this case there were two.

“If you don’t come round to see them,” Max told him, “I think Cat may disown you. How about this weekend?”

“So long as I close this case up. It’s Jim bloody Strange,” Morse stuffed his hands into his pockets and swallowed thickly. The wife had been shot at a very bad angle and it was much too graphic for his delicate sensibilities, “He’s made it his personal project that I should solve anything anyone else hasn’t from the last ten years.”

Max covered the body and Morse let out a breath and continued, “They’re alright though? The cats. At home alone with you working-”

“Our little mum is doing a very good job, but my sister’s come in to help. She’s staying for a week or so. She’ll likely take one of the kittens eventually, if you’re alright with it,” Max moved to his notes and cast Morse an expectant glance.

He wasn’t sure why but the knowledge that Max’s sister was there, would be there if they got together on the weekend, that she was likely sleeping in the guest bedroom - the bedroom that was usually his own personal crashpad - that she was taking care of the cats instead of him…

“She’s interested in the ginger,” Max was looking at him still and he hadn’t said anything back.

“Right. Yes, fine. She’s the one who lives in the country? Sounds fine,” Morse tried a smile but it didn’t reach his eyes, “That’s one down, yeah?”

Max didn’t look convinced but at this point in their friendship, Morse acting odd was generally par for the course. He went back to his notes, “Why don’t you come by for dinner tonight?”

Morse may have responded better if Max had instead said _‘you’ve stopped coming round completely, I know how you get with work but our little family is feeling abandoned’_. Wishful thinking, perhaps, on his own part. Maybe it was unsaid, but Morse just awkwardly shrugged his way out of it, “Wouldn’t want to commit… with this case.”

“Of course,” Max straightened and pulled off his work smock.

“Thank you though,” Morse tried a smile again.

“Anytime,” Max’s was much more believable.

* * *

The double murder ended with a much simpler conclusion than usual and the wrap up came just in time to give Morse that free weekend he’d been hoping for. An angry, trigger happy neighbor had gotten off his tit wasted at the pub, after having denied his involvement vehemently to the police, and spilled his confession to a sympathetic barmaid a couple of evenings later. It was a bit infuriating actually, being put through the runaround only to have him dish to a stranger, but the Superintendent was well pleased to have a case close without it dragging out a week or more and having a confession to boot.

By the time Saturday came along, Morse found himself strangely anxious about dropping by at Max’s. He fidgeted a bit at the door, much like he had years before when he’d arrived for the first time or any time since where he’d just shown up unannounced. His own social awkwardness knew no bounds. It never felt natural to simply ‘drop by’ anywhere, which was why he too often used work as an excuse (or had half a load on).

It was no wonder everyone viewed him as a sad sod. He really was, wasn’t he?

Even now it felt strange to be empty handed, even when he was expected. He wasn’t sure what to bring a bunch of newborn kittens and Max hadn’t mentioned if they would be having a meal so he hadn’t brought a bottle. The sister’s presence, he realized, hung over everything in his mind. An unknown factor. A mysterious third party. And sure enough there had been another vehicle in the drive beside Max’s own car when Morse had pulled up, a mud splattered grey Volvo with a rainbow colored peace sign bumper sticker and a decal of dancing bears.

Morse was already dreading their meeting.

He’d barely knocked once when the low wooden door swung open and a short, buxom woman with a sturdy build greeted him. He wasn’t quite sure what he expected and beside her relative size she and Max didn’t look extraordinarily alike, but when she smiled up at him, Morse realized the siblings had the same dimples even if her chunky beaded necklaces and free flowing tie-dye dress set her apart style wise.

“You must be the other daddy. Morse, was it?” She had a very placid smile.

“Yes,” He muttered stupidly. The term daddy being bandied about threw him for a loop. He thrust his hand out for a shake.

“Sarah,” She ignored his hand and instead pressed a spread palm to her chest and nodded her head towards him in a polite half-bow, “I don’t shake. In many spiritualities, touching between genders is forbidden if not married. It’s interesting really-”

Morse was starting to see the resemblance. When Sarah lectured, she sounded very much like her brother.

“-the goal of equality for all pitted against the respect for people’s beliefs. I much prefer bowing these days,” She waved a hand, her wrist crammed with bracelets that clacked with a plasticine sound, “Come on in then. Max made it sound like you half lived here but seeing you shifting about on the doorstep like an awkward-”

“Sarah, please,” Max’s head popped out from the landing upstairs.

Sarah pursed her lips and bobbed on her toes in a very Max-like way. She emanated the energy of a strict headmistress mixed with one of those holistic gurus people paid ridiculous sums to fix their lives. Very different, yet strangely similar to her brother.

Max’s head disappeared, replaced by his hand, and that familiar beckoning curl of fingers that Morse couldn’t help but follow. Once upstairs, Max closed the spare room door behind them and dropped his voice even though his sister hadn’t followed.

"She means well. Decided to find herself about ten years ago-" Max moved to the bed and sat down which cued some sounds of movement from the closet.

"And that's what happened?" Morse chuckled slightly.

Max smiled small, "I think she may have actually found _something_. It's definitely been an improvement. To thine own self be true, I suppose."

They were joined, in moments, by four wobbling babies and one herding mother and Morse found himself gasping rather desperately at how cute they were. His legs folded under him and he pulled his shoes off as he joined them on the floor. Cat crawled into his lap immediately but his punishment for being gone so long was an immediate pierce of claws into his thighs. Morse hissed but muttered an apology and proceeded with scratching around her ears and under her chin.

"I thought she wouldn't let us pick her up because she had been pregnant, but she still won't," Max supplied. He wriggled his toes for the ginger kitten who had crawled up to his socked foot while blocking the mostly white pair with his other foot from going under the bed. Max was smiling, grinning even, but it was hard not to when they were about the most adorable things anyone had ever seen.

"You did say she was a wild thing," Cat blinked her eyes blissfully as Morse continued to pet her, and she in turn continued to knead into his legs which left him twinging every minute or so. The tabby kitten was corralled with his free hand until it joined it's mum on his lap and proceeded to try and burrow into the warm creases of his folded legs.

He felt like he was going to explode. He loved them.

Morse scooted himself to lean back against the bed beside where Max was perched and as they chatted about the kittens progress and what the vet had said, he became hyper aware of the doctor's physical presence. Max’s hand rested on the mattress near the back of Morse's neck, his knee brushed and occasionally bumped his arm and shoulder and Morse himself leaned into the contact as they laughed at one of the kittens falling over its sibling in a bid for attention. Nothing could turn a pair of grown men into a pair of cooing idiots like baby animals and it didn't in any way hinder the warm squishy feelings that being here with Max caused. Time away hadn't cured him at all of his fancy. If anything, it was worse. Kittens seemed to be an amplifier.

Morse had nearly forgotten about Sarah until the door cracked open and she popped her head in. He stiffened as if being caught in a compromising position despite doing nothing but talking.

"I'm off to do some shopping. I've had a peep about your pantry, Max, and honestly it's a wonder you haven't had a coronary with the amount of fat and sugar you keep around. If I'm to stay I'll need a few more greens to keep regular-"

"Good Lord," Max exasperated, "Just go."

“Do either of you need anything?”

Morse blinked, unsure why he would be asked, and declined. Max asked her to pick up some bread.

“I’ll probably pop down the pub as well and leave you boys be for a bit. Don’t forget to feed yourselves. And socialize with the babes. It’s an important part of their development,” She gave a tutting wag of finger and disappeared again.

Morse gave Max a look and Max shook his head, “It really is an improvement. You should have seen her before.”

* * *

Sarah had brought an old wicker hamper from home that, besides smelling vaguely of patchouli, had been lined with fleece and served as a perfect form of transportation to bring the kittens downstairs. Cat seemed grateful for the relocation and actually disappeared out the kitchen window for about an hour while the babies slept bundled in the basket. Morse vented about the last couple of cases over a beer while Max put together an early meal of cold chicken sandwiches and produced a few bags of crisps. Cat reappeared just in time for them to start eating and perched in her usual chair like she always did, peering over the edge of the table very keenly at them and watching every bite that went into their mouths.

They caught each other up on gossip, as well as new leads on prospective kitten homes, and by the time they had finished and moved into the sitting room to relax, the kittens were stirring in their basket. They watched in rapt attention as Cat roughly grabbed them one by one by the necks and dragged them onto the hearth rug before settling in for a feeding. All of them crawled greedily against their mum’s body and latched on while she leaned back with the most beleaguered of expressions.

“Kids,” Max snorted.

Cat yawned in response.

Sarah was back by the time the kittens had finished their meal. They began to teeter about again but weren't overly adventurous. They mostly wobbled towards each other and the warmest possible places to sleep, so Morse and Max had a pair of them each in their laps when the woman returned with a hefty shopping bag exploding with green things and a six pack of ale. 

“This is your brand, isn’t it?” She seemed more like Max by the moment, Morse found, as she barked lightly and clunked the beer on the coffee table.

“Oh, you really didn’t have to-”

“Nonsense,” Sarah waved a hand as she briskly moved to the kitchen and began to put things away. Morse was trying to stand to help but had two kittens on his belly that he was loathe to disturb, “We all know my brother is more of a wine man. Which means the beer I found earlier was for you - and it was the last one.”

“You make it sound like a sin to have a bit of a drink,” Max tutted.

Sarah’s brows went up, “What_ is_ the official medically recommended weekly allowance of alcohol, Max?”

“Do you happen to be the older sibling?” Morse interrupted with a smirk.

Sarah smiled at that. Max frowned.

With her return, Morse began to worry about his intruding on something. He continued to sit on the floor with the kittens when Max went into the kitchen to assist his sister with her purchases. He could hear them bickering over this or that, and then lapse into the usual observations on the prices in the local market and Sarah's thoughts on if the local vegetables were being grown in proper ways. He overheard her talking about her own garden, then Max about his, and soon the pair of them were planning swaps of seedlings and sending one another preserves and jams and the like in the fall.

Taking this as his cue, Morse returned the kittens to their basket and went to fetch his shoes. As he slipped them on, Sarah appeared in the sitting room and looked at him with surprise, “Leaving?”

“Oh, just getting ready to. I’ve been here a while-”

“Don’t leave on account of me,” She blinked.

“No. Of course not- I’ve just remembered I promised to give my own sister a call,” He smiled through his lie and gave his shoes a tie. “Besides it’s getting late.” For a pensioner maybe.

Max followed his sister, his brow furrowed in familiar concern but saying nothing.

“Come by this week for dinner,” Sarah insisted, “I’ll cook.” She shot a glance to Max who rolled his eyes.

“I bet both of you could use some more green in your diet,” She scoffed, “And you, _Maximilian_, a doctor-”

Max moved past her, towards where Morse lingered, as his ears flushed red. He hooked an elbow through Morse’s arm and led him to the door where thankfully, his sister didn’t follow.

“Maximilian?” Morse couldn’t stifle his small smile.

“Don’t you dare-” Max shot him a look.

“S’better than Maxwell I suppose. Maybe Maxim...?” Morse mused.

“Are we really going to get into first names?”

“Point taken,” Morse turned an invisible key in front of his lips before he mimed tossing it away.

Max opened the door for him and as he stepped through he turned and lingered. It was one of those moments again, awkward and tense, wherein Morse didn’t want to leave but he also wasn’t sure - realistically - that he could manage staying any longer.

“You _should_ come for dinner this week,” Max finally said to break the silence. There was something soft in his voice but Morse couldn’t tell if it was an effort to keep out of Sarah’s earshot or something of a true and earnest desire, “I vow to not allow any plying us with unnecessary amounts of dandelion shoots or carrot stems or whatever other nonsense she comes up with.”

The more Morse listened, the more it sounded like Max was looking to be rescued from his sister. If that were the case, Morse surely couldn’t let him down, “If you’d like.”

“I would.”

That simple statement sent an excited ripple up Morse’s spine. It was foolish to be so pleased with such a small thing, but couldn’t help it. He smiled more, “Alright.”

Inside the house he heard the radio go on, the obnoxious staccato static of stations changing swiftly, and then a very sudden and very harsh guitar cord. Max winced a bit.

“Have a good night, Max,” Morse chuckled.

“You sure I can’t come with you?” Max smiled a bit pathetically. It was a joke, he knew, but Morse felt the before unknown need to to scream ‘_YES YES YES’_ rise up in his throat. He swallowed it down.

“I’m positive she’d track you down. Then she’d know where I live and we wouldn’t have any safe place,” He said instead, “Besides you need to watch over our little ones.”

“Alas,” Max sighed, “The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.”

The guitar on the radio wailed a bit longer. Max closed his eyes in a silent bid for strength and Morse chewed on the implication of what such a great and noble enterprise could be under the circumstances.

“I’ll call you about dinner,” He finally said, “Good night.”

Max seemed reluctant to close the door, but finally did, “Good night, Morse.”

He felt lighter as he walked to the car and his wishful thinking felt a little less wishful and, for once, a little more real.


	4. Chapter 4

Two dinners took place over the course of the week and a half that Sarah was in town and Morse discovered, as Max had said, that she really wasn’t so bad. He always did best with straightforward honesty and she was a woman who possessed it in spades. She had been a fairly successful chartered accountant before her ‘transformation’ ten years ago. She’d felt a need to change, to find some sort of meaning in her life, something outside of numbers and figures and her own account balance to define her, and so she’d gone off to a retreat to seek answers.

“The lion’s share of it was very culty, mind. Absolute rubbish. In fact, you coppers ought to be investigating that sort of thing. There are very gullible people out in the world,” She wagged her finger at Morse over what remained of a roasted cod and pesto dish she and Max had put together. It was the last evening before she finally drove back home, “I took the bits that worked and made them work for me.”

"And you're still an accountant?" Morse had finished two helpings of his dinner and was now just sipping his wine, turning the glass between his fingers idly as they chatted.

"Very capitalist of me, I know," Sarah's brows bobbed, "But it’s a capitalist world and a girl's got to eat."

Max would tell him, when she excused herself from the table, that she was very good at what she did and it had been very lucrative for her. Instead of trying to embark on a whole new career, she’d sold her London flat, dropped a percentage of her existing clientele and bought a little parcel of land in the country. Now she split her time between private consulting and working for various non-profit organizations and charities at a steep discount.

Morse realized how shallow he’d been in his misguided jealousy. Even if different from Max, Sarah seemed to have good head on her shoulders. When she rejoined them at the table he asked about her home, a cottage with a garden and a few fruit trees, and expressed for the first time aloud that it sounded like a lovely place to send one of their kittens off to.

When Morse left that evening it had been Sarah herself who walked him out and said goodbye. She assaulted him with an unexpected hug, and Morse was caught awkward and unaware when she kissed his cheek and murmured in his ear, “I’m very happy for you both, really.”

He’d been sure, at the moment, that she’d just meant about the kittens and he and Max having this new experience together, but the longer he mulled it over, the more he realized her true implication. He would, in fact, think about it all the way home and then all that evening as he listened to Wagner and stared at his sitting room ceiling with a glass of whiskey. It even slipped into his sleep where he was once more haunted by disjointed visions and ghost feelings of fingers through his hair and warm sunlight and cat purrs and an arm around his waist.

When Morse awoke the next day he was completely out of sorts, the sort of disconnection that came with a night’s sleep that hadn’t felt like sleep at all. He half wanted to drive over to Max’s to belligerently confront Sarah about what she’d meant and set her straight before she was gone. He and Max were clearly just two friends who’d decided to share custody of a cat and liked to have meals together and drink nights and occasionally crashed at one another’s houses and sometimes, very rare sometimes, shared a bed.

Mostly he worried that he’d been too obvious.

Had he?  
Had Max said something?  
Why did she have to go ahead and say that to him, in a whisper no less, while her brother wasn’t there to dispute it?

His stomach was in knots and by lunchtime Morse couldn’t keep his mind on his work to save his life. Everyone he interacted with seemed to become an unwitting victim of his ire. He snapped at the man in the chippy when he stopped for a bite to eat and a detour to The White Horse for a pint afterwards had not led to any relaxation. Somehow the idea that Max’s sister had gleaned something from their limited interactions, that she’d assumed something was afoot, just as he’d been trying his damndest not to give himself away… it bothered him immensely.

If she thought that, what if others did as well?  
Should he be satisfied, encouraged even, that she assumed there was some sort of mutual privacy between them?  
Did she see something in Max that he didn’t dare to?  
Was he tearing himself up inside over nothing?

Perhaps, if it _was_ mutual - if he’d ever made a move - if he’d ever even tried to tell Max how he felt instead of bottling it up and ignoring it…

Morse’s thoughts spiralled out of his control. He needed grounding and so, in predictable fashion, he found himself using the pub phone to give Max a ring at the hospital. He would concoct a story if he had to. He’d ask after Sarah’s departure or inquire about the cats, he’d say any old thing just to speak to him. He needed to know that nothing had changed, that it was all in his head, that after he’d gone home there hadn’t been any world shattering revelations that may have shifted Max’s opinion of him. Morse knew it was his own paranoia. He knew that all it would take was a case or a puzzle or a few drinks and a good buzz on to have him balance all of this out and dismiss his own foolishness, but now he'd got it in his head and he needed to hear Max’s voice to get it out.

The phone in Max’s office went to the machine and the phone at the morgue desk was picked up by one of the attendants who informed him that Dr. Debryn had taken the day off but Dr. Connell was filling in if he’d like him instead..?

Morse thanked them and hung up. Logically, he knew that Max had probably taken the day to see his sister off and get himself a bit of rest, but his stomach roiled at a billion and one self-centered possibilities that ranged from the inconveniently improbable to the absolutely impossible.

He should have just called the house but the barmaid was looking a bit incensed that he’d even made a second call, so he ordered another pint to smooth ruffled feathers (and as an emotional buffer), and drank it down as quickly as he could. It didn’t take long before Morse found himself standing once again in front of Max’s front door in the golden afternoon light second guessing all of his own intentions and already feeling a bit of a fool. He knocked, afraid that if he didn’t he would just turn around and leave, and then he knocked again to lock himself into his own decision.

There was no answer.

Morse stepped back, his heart slowly sinking, and he was uneasily reminded of that evening he'd met Cat, except this time Max’s car sat there in the drive and it was the first floor windows that were cracked open and fluttering with white embroidered drapes. The other glaring difference was that he was (mostly) stone sober.

Morse swallowed and rocked back on his heels. As he battled the instinct to leave, a set of giant yellow eyes appeared at the open window and Cat’s bulk squeezed out through the wood framing to meet him. Even after she’d had her babies she was a large thing, heavy and long with a newly acquired bit of paunch, and her body hit the ground with an audible sound when she leapt down behind the flower beds and wound her way to his ankles to rub against him and purr. After a pause, where she gazed up at him and let out a low disgruntled sounding yowl, Cat stood on her back legs and stretched up past his knee as if she wanted to be lifted up.

“You hate being picked up,” He informed her, as if she didn’t know, but she made that annoyed sound again and reached up further, flexing her paws wide before she dug her claws straight into his leg.

“Fine!” Morse hissed as he caved and reached down to lift her up. She was very much like an unruly child and hung limp in his hands until he scooped her into the curve of one arm and held her against his chest for the first time ever. Cat blinked and purred and then looked expectantly at the front door and Morse felt once again as if she were trying to convince him to take part in some sort of crime.

“You’re a manipulative little bitch, you know that?” He scratched under her chin and down onto the soft fur of her chest as she purred even louder, “And I’m not drunk this time.”

She continued to purr, shifting in his arms to expose more of her belly for scratching.

“Sweetness won’t work on me. If that door is locked-” He realized that he still had a key, but his stubbornness was kicking in. He repeated himself to be clear, "_If that door is locked_ I’m going straight home and you’re going back in with the kiddies.”

She just stared at him and rumbled pleasantly.

Morse took a deep breath and willed away the tremor of anxiety in his chest. He tried the door.

It opened.

He wasn’t sure if he should be elated or terrified but Morse screwed up his courage, stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him before he could change his mind. The house was quiet, no radio or music, no kitchen noises or sounds of running water. He hovered in the foyer, now scratching lightly across Cat’s belly, before he finally decided a course of action and walked into the sitting room.

Morse found Max stretched out on his back across the sofa. He still had his glasses on and his arms were crossed over his chest rather sternly but four kittens slept in the seam of his legs, which were crossed at the ankle, and the man was fast asleep in a warm patch of sun.

“Oh,” It came out in a sigh. It was propelled out of him. He was struck. Whatever he’d been thinking, whatever turmoil he’d been in, escaped with that one word.

Max was lovely in the sunlight, covered in kittens, chest rising and falling in slow and even breaths that came gently through his parted lips. Still in his specs and shoes and braces, he even looked put together as he slept. The silver in his hair almost glowed in the warm pool of afternoon light that surrounded him.

He was perfect.

_Christ._

He was in love with him, wasn’t he?

The realization set him alight. That feeling from under the stars, the desolation when he’d thought Max was on a date, the cause of that burning and stinging behind his eyes, the terror of the unknown exploding from him fully formed and realized - this was it.

Morse had always thought all the literary spin they put on love was a bit exaggerated. Freezing in one’s steps, heart pounding out of the chest, _melting. _But suddenly his spine felt a bit like jelly, like every hard edge of him had worn away and he was left with nothing but his softest most vulnerable parts exposed. His knees felt as wobbly as his insides and Cat, possibly sensing his instability, jumped down to the floor. Like permission had been granted, Morse followed. He sunk to his knees and sat back on his heels as he watched Max sleep.

He was a stupid man, wasn’t he? Stupidly romantic. Stupidly smitten with his best mate and turning into a jelly blob of sentimentality in the mere presence of him. He’d never even told him the most simplest truth, had he? That their odd imbalanced friendship was the most long lasting reliable connection he’d ever had. How could he tell a man he loved him when he’d barely ever even admitted to him that they were the best of friends? Did he even have the right to become a trembling mess of romance novel stereotypes in the middle of Max’s sitting room when he hadn’t even done that much?

Morse felt some impropriety watching Max sleep but he couldn’t bring himself to leave, so he turned away. Cat leapt up and joined her kittens, walking in a circle on Max’s belly just as Morse sunk in on himself. He pressed his back against the sofa, put his elbows on his angled knees and buried his face hopelessly into his hands. It hurt. It actually physically ached in every thud of heartbeat. It was a throb against his breastbone and nearly a chore to breathe. Every insecurity balled up with the certainty that he was _wrong _for these feelings and settled like a lead weight in his chest.

He didn’t hear Max inhale deeply as Cat kneaded into his stomach and woke him up. He didn’t feel him shifting to unstiffen his limbs but he did feel fingers accidentally brush the back of his neck as Max stretched and it startled him from his brooding.

“Morse,” Max yawned and his fingers withdrew when he realized the other man was there. He wasn’t wholly awake, “Sorry.”

Morse turned and caught the hand in his own. He found, very abruptly, that he couldn't bear to let Max apologize for anything. And he also couldn’t bear it dragging on any longer, “Don’t be.”

Max stilled, his fingers held tight, and he watched Morse without saying anything. There was a mild confusion in his expression but it was also distant, detached, as if he weren’t sure if it was happening or a joke or he was still sleeping. After too long of a silence, Max finally asked, “What are you doing here?”

Morse felt trapped, but for the first time in a long time, he didn’t have the desire to run. Instead he was glued to the spot. He could hear his own pulse in his ears and knew the time for confession (or excuses) was now, yet he couldn’t think of what to say. Dare he admit that he’d rushed over here in a panic? That he’d been in a fit for a night and a day because of what Sarah had whispered into his ear? Would a desperately gripped hand be all he could manage?

His fingertips moved along Max’s work worn palm, brushed along his fingers and felt the calluses along the edges of his fingertips. Max’s hand curled against his in return, and then, silently, their fingers laced together and tightened. Morse’s chest clenched in a silent reply and when he opened his mouth to take a desperately needed breath he heard himself say aloud, “I want to kiss you.”

Max shifted himself up a bit and, bless him, cracked a smile. He looked more awake suddenly, his eyes brightened considerably from their post-nap fog, “Go on then.”

So he did. Morse leaned up and over the edge of the sofa and he pressed their lips together.

_“You’re brilliant…” Morse slurred into a nice smelling pillowcase as his trousers were tugged off from the ankle. His own dead weight did little to assist in their removal. _

_“I am, yes,” Max agreed as he folded them over a chair where they joined Morse’s shirt. _

_“Prat,” Morse snickered, but free of his clothing he squirmed indulgently into the bedding and wriggled his way under the blankets. _

_“I may also be that, but tonight, I think, the invasive bugger who crawled into my bed is the prat. You aren’t chasing me out of my own room though. Push over,” Max hung his dressing gown behind the door and Morse barely registered that he was bare to the waist until he climbed into the bed beside him. Max kept a polite distance but Morse was too far gone and rolled towards him, stopping just short of bumping their faces together. Their noses nearly touched._

_“I want to kiss you,” Morse said. _

_“You’re very drunk, Morse. We can discuss whatever this is about in the morning.”_

_“I’ll still want to kiss you in the morning,” He nuzzled towards him gently, their noses bumping and then brushing, and Morse reached out for Max under the covers to touch the warm skin of his side._

_Max gave him cautionary look, still as a statue, “That’ll be tomorrow’s prob-”_

_Morse’s nuzzling hadn’t been a tease. He cut Max off with a kiss, whiskey soaked but sweet, soft and gentle, and after a moment Max’s lips parted in a sigh and he kissed him back. There was nothing more, just a kiss, and when they broke apart Morse grinned and Max shook his head rather hopelessly at him and Morse could feel the heat in both of their cheeks when he latched on like a koala and immediately fell asleep._

Morse was flushed red as a beet when they finally parted and Max looked smug in spite of his pink dusted cheeks. Morse, now that he remembered, found it reminiscent of how he'd looked after they'd kissed in bed that night.

“Prat,” Morse said weakly. The jelly feeling had disappeared but now every nerve of his was on fire with a mix of embarrassment and heady exhilaration.

There was a surprised laugh from Max, “Jogged your own memory?”

“I can’t believe I forgot,” Morse grumbled. He was still holding Max’s hand, clutching it desperately now, so he loosened his grip but didn’t let go, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You were drunk. Staggering levels of drunk, in fact. And you never said another thing about it...”

“_You_ could have said,” Morse shook his head, “Something. I don’t know.”

“I did say you threw yourself at me. If I recall you looked at me like I pissed in your porridge. Not exactly a reassuring reaction.”

Morse’s head fell and he pressed his face against the side of Max’s shoulder. He obviously remembered the teasing, and the comment about being ravaged on the kitchen table once more made itself known in his mind, but Max had been taking the piss and Morse hadn’t been awake enough for all that. He couldn’t deny that his jaw as good as dropped into his breakfast.

They were a right pair of idiots.

He felt Max’s hand smooth over his head and run through his hair and it sent lovely tingles down his spine. Morse inhaled deep of his scent and more flashes of memory returned: sharing the bed, latching on and cuddling close. He remembered Max being stiff as he threw his limbs around him, but eventually the doctor had relaxed when he realized there was nothing to be done about it. Max could have taken advantage but he hadn’t. He could have taken more than the kiss and Morse would have given it willingly - happily - yet he hadn't. He had been right all along that he could trust Max with his life.

“Anything else I’ve forgotten?”Morse finally looked up and gave a wry smile, “I’m already flayed before you, my dear doctor. Was there anything else I missed?”

Max adjusted his position and shifted himself to sit a bit straighter. Cat didn’t like all the moving about and decided it was as good a chance as any to relocate her babies, so she did so as they talked.

“I will admit that when I came downstairs that night I heard a bit of you talking to the cat,” Max’s fingers now ran along Morse’s, tracing the lines of them, circling the knobs of his knuckles and then caressing down to his palm, “It was the crack of the wood of the door that woke me up. I came down somewhere in the middle of you asking her if you were pathetic.”

Morse hung his head again and was sure his fading flush had come back full strength. He didn’t even remember much of talking to the cat now, just that he’d been drowning in a mire of opportunities lost. He still felt it, just there on the horizon waiting for him, that devastation. Morse hadn’t quite absorbed yet that this was all really happening.

“There was something about you being a coward,” Max’s brows lifted. He sounded amused again, “and taking me for granted?”

Morse groaned.

“Which you do, absolutely,” Max’s hands pulled away but when Morse looked up at him, the doctor was reaching for him and he leaned forward until his face was cradled between Max’s palms. Cat and her kittens had all made it safely to the floor so the doctor swung his legs down and Morse shifted between them. He was still on his knees but it felt fitting. Like penitence. Like a prayer. Or begging.

Max brushed his thumbs across Morse’s cheeks as his eyes swept over his face. He felt like he was being analyzed, being read, but he couldn’t hide anything now. Max had to know that, and when he finally leaned closer, Morse knew that he did.

It was Max who initiated the kiss this time. It was different, uncomplicated and open. Max’s lips on his were sweet and undemanding, perfectly content with what they’d discovered, and it struck to the heart of him. There was more than love here, more than desire, there was satisfaction and completion. It was coming home. The ultimate puzzle whose pieces had finally fit together perfectly.

Morse could feel Max smile as he chained more kisses together, short and grateful, playful, before they finished with something slower and deeper and full of promise that set Morse’s toes practically curling.

“What was that all for?” Morse breathed when they broke apart. His skin prickled with fresh sensation.

“You aren’t the only one who’s been waiting too long. I’ve been a bit of a coward myself, love.”

“Oh, don’t-” Morse couldn’t help the rather desperate way he said it, like a pained exhale, “-don’t use that word if you don’t mean it, Max. I’m not sure I could take it right now. ”

“Have you ever known me to say something I don’t mean?” Max’s hands on his cheeks got firmer. He tilted Morse’s face until he looked him in the eye. Max’s expression was earnest and open, “I said that you weren’t alone in this.”

Morse felt every word of it. It seared into him. This was much better than his slivered disjointed dreams. Better than his hazy memories of snug entanglement. It was real and present and every bit of his ignored desire, every iota of self-denied affection, crawled across his skin like static, enervating him, sparking every nerve to life. Most people demanded to hear ‘those three little words’ to know their love was real. Poets and authors and artists had concocted a million stirring and beautiful ways to express the feeling, but Morse found that all he needed now was this: Max with him and looking at him just like that.

“I think it’s been years,” Morse admitted softly.

"Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably," Max’s open smile took a touch of sadness and Morse realized that for Max, it was possibly longer than the doctor would ever admit. 

It ached him if he thought about it too much, about how much he’d abused Max’s generosity. His unspoken love.

Max did take a moment to self correct with a chuckle, "Well, maybe _wise_ isn't the word." 

It was then, mid laugh, that Morse blurted in sudden impulse, “Your sister!”

He wasn't sure where it came from, just from the zooming interwoven connections of his own mind, but it exploded out of nowhere, the reason he’d come by, the push it had taken to get him here. He sat back on his heels and Max let him slip away, hands clamping on the ends of knees.

“She thought we were already-” His finger bobbed back and forth between them emphatically.

“What?” Max’s face scrunched in confusion.

“When she walked me out last night, she whispered in my ear how happy she was for us. I was a bit confused at first- I thought she meant about the kittens-”

Max threw his head back and groaned lightly, “I knew she was trying to get at something. Spent her whole visit interrogating me, not so secretly, about _you_ if you came up in conversation. I thought she was just,” Max waved a hand, “Being her. Over protective. Nosey. Making sure you were on the up and up with this cat business.”

Morse chuckled a bit, “We could use her in the police. She’d be a horror in the interrogation room.”

“Plying everyone with kale and home made juice and trying to purge them of their negative energy.”

The pair of them broke out in soft laughter that righted something in the air. Morse was still on his knees, Max still on the sofa, but it felt more even somehow, and between them something squeaky and orange toddled across the carpet and they both glanced down with gentle smiles at the curious little kitten.

Max picked the ginger baby and it gave a tiny hiss before he set it on the cushion next to him.

Morse scooped up the other three and unfolded himself from the floor. He nudged Max’s knee with a foot, “Push over.”

Max chuckled and shifted to make room.

Morse set down beside him and stretched himself out. His joints popped lightly as he fully extended his legs and he slouched into the sofa. The three kittens in his possession were deposited on his stomach and Max set the fourth on his chest.

Cat jumped up and squished herself between their thighs, a greedy vibrating lifeline between them.

"She let me pick her up today," Morse supplied.

"Well that clinches it," Max clucked his tongue and flipped his hands lightly, "You're the favorite."

Morse rolled his eyes, "No, I'm not."

"My chicken liver bribery was to no avail," Max sighed and scratched Cat behind the ears.

Morse was rather occupied with all four kittens on top of him. One was trying to get over his shoulder and across the back of the couch, the others were latching into the fabric of his shirt to get their balance. When Morse glanced up at Max again, he found he was being watched. It was that gentle expression again, and now that he knew, there was no confusion about it. Max was admiring him. He grinned, he couldn't help it really, and Max smiled back

"Are you sure we can't just keep them?" Kittens were easier to talk about than feelings. What else needed to be said anyway?

"You won't be saying that in a week when they're sprinting about the place and climbing the curtains and trying to chew on every electrical cord and using your records as a scratching post."

"Not these kittens," Morse said with a coo while making kissy lips at the tabby kitten that had ventured up to his chin, "Maybe just keep one. For my house."

“Oh yes, a poor creature that you’ll forget to feed and leave home alone for days at a time..” Max’s hand snuck out to squeeze his thigh pointedly, “Besides, when will you have time to be here if you do that? You’ve already got a cat who apparently likes you more than it likes me. Someone is going to have to speak to her about sneaking out and cavorting with unsavory tomcats.”

As simple as it sounded, the implication that he was a required presence in Max’s home bloomed a tingly sort of heat through him, “She has been a bit of slag hasn’t she.”

Cat yawned.

“How much longer until they can be adopted out?”

“Another month, maybe longer depending on how they are doing. They need check ups and to be fully on solid food…” Max lifted the pair of white spotted babes into his own lap when they looked like they were about to annoy their mum. She wasn’t shy about pushing them around, shoving them when she knew they wouldn’t be gravely hurt, and while it was funny, now wasn’t the time.

Morse made a sound at that, “We need to screen prospective parents, Max. Very thoroughly.”

The doctor shook his head and smirked, “You’re going to be awful about this aren’t you?”

“It’s important,” Morse huffed seriously right before he once more made smoochy lips at the next babe that neared his face. This one got full on kisses between it’s little ears, “God, they even smell cute.”

“And this is the cutest stage, so at least there’s that. When they get larger and smellier we get to ship them off,” The white and spotted twins (as they referred to them) were crawling out of Max's lap and each time he scooped them up and put them back. 

Morse turned and gave Max a measuring look. His voice had dropped with a bit more gravity, “What now, Max?”

“Dinner?”

Morse smothered a smile, “I meant.. with us.”

“Ah,” Max turned to face him more, angling a knee across the sofa cushion and folding his hands together in his lap.

Even his idle movements were very prim and Morse adored the way he leaned his head back into the headrest and blinked at him.

“Well, you’ve already got a key. You spend half your evenings here already. We have a child together,” He smirked, “And since I can do this now..” Max leaned forward and kissed him and Morse’s insides tumbled over themselves anew. When Max pulled back he chased it, “I’m not sure there is much else besides _not_ telling my bloody sister. She’ll be an absolute hag about it. Know-it-all.”

“Her? _Nooo…_” Morse said sarcastically.

Max lifted his brows stubbornly, “As far as I’m concerned, she can go on assuming.”

Morse just flipped a hand up in surrender.

“So,” Max shifted forward and once again rested a hand on Morse’s leg, “Dinner? Sarah left some greens that are just asking to be drowned in garlic and butter.”

Morse settled a hand on top of his and squeezed, and taking it as agreement, the doctor redistributed the kittens and pushed himself up to move into the kitchen.

“Max,” Morse called when he’d gotten into the doorway, “Can I stay tonight?”

Max’s brows lifted, “Looking for that ravaging finally?”

Morse felt himself get red. Apparently, neither of them had forgotten that bit, “Well, if it’s still on the table-” He replied, very tongue in cheek, “But actually I was just hoping for a bit of a cuddle. I’m a cuddler, I’m told.”

Max was pink too, his ears taken on a lovely rosy hue, and he smirked and flashed Morse a wink before he rounded the doorway and disappeared.

Morse could it feel it ripple through him, head to toe. He listed sideways, feeling all the nervous energy sap away from him. It wasn’t wholly exhaustive, but an emotional drain that felt like it suddenly caught up with him. He wasn’t empty and useless, not like he usually would be, just changed. The dread was gone. The loneliness. The anxiety. Now there was only a nervousness about what was ahead for them, and excitement. Still, his fretting had been tiring. He wanted to bask in this moment, in this comfort, lay down and stretch out and wrap himself in the security of it like waking up in Max’s arms with the world still a bit whiskey soaked and Cat snuggled in against him like she knew she belonged there before he even did.

She did it again now, as Morse toed off his shoes to spread himself in the warm spot that Max had vacated. With one arm he kept the kittens on the cushions and the other he curled under his head.

Cat purred loudly and stared at him.

“This is all your fault you know,” He muttered to her.

Her nose twitched and she inched forward to sniff his face. Morse whispered, “_Thank you._”

“You know,” Max’s voice carried from the kitchen, “You never told me what you were doing here. You should be at work.”

Morse’s paranoid frenzy had been nearly forgotten now, wiped clean by kisses and confessions. His whole day of self-imposed torture, his off-kilter and agitated mood, all like a memory. He’d just wanted Max’s stabilizing force, and now it was his.

And it turned out that he’d had it all along.

Max was right. They didn’t need anything else did they? Nothing about their relationship needed to change. The path forward would be much like the past. Them together, a bit older and (arguably) a bit wiser, and finally with the courage to say and show how they felt. All they could need - they had it all already.

Morse gave Cat a scratch under the chin and raised his voice with a nonchalant air, “Can’t remember.”

Max, never the fool, just hummed in response, “You don’t say.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it!  
It only took 18k for them to figure it out!
> 
> Looking also for feedback on how the periodic release of chapters worked for you guys :D If you have been keeping up week to week.
> 
> LOVE YALL. THANKS.


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